


a brief study on a brief point in time

by post_mortem



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, New Years, Seasons, literally just me waxing poetic on the four seasons and a goodboy, please love fukunaga shouhei
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 18:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13981158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/post_mortem/pseuds/post_mortem
Summary: “Kid,” rooster-head says to Fukunaga. “You play volleyball?”[Alternatively: How Fukunaga Shouhei falls in love with the seasons.][Takes place one year before canon.]





	a brief study on a brief point in time

**I. smoothing out wrinkles**

 

Spring is the beginning.

 

Spring is the beginning of beginnings, and Fukunaga Shouhei is living his first day at Nekoma High.

 

To say that he isn’t nervous would be a tragic misunderstanding, but Fukunaga doesn’t often get nervous, anyway, and it can be said that his particular brand of nervousness is the kind that goes hand in hand with excitement. 

 

To say that he isn’t excited, of course, would be the most tragic misunderstanding of all.

 

The morning puts a little spring into Fukunaga’s step. Weeds and blossoms alike shimmer with morning dew, and nests high, high up fill themselves with leaves, and Fukunaga takes extra care to avoid stepping on any stray snails that have come out to enjoy the fresh air. 

 

The breeze sweeps _sakura_ blossoms to the side of the road, making a path fit for several kings, probably, better fit for quiet schoolboys on their way to shining years. Even better fit for the wandering paws of white cats and black cats and cats of every colour in between. Cats who won’t settle for _good enough,_ won’t stop treading and smoothing ‘till the wrinkles in every petal disappear like they were never there in the first place.

 

Fukunaga’s backpack jangles with loose pins and home-made keychains, making a lilting rhythm as he half skips, half walks, and they ring out in the clear day outfitted with all the raucousness that Fukunaga wouldn’t think of wearing himself. And they jingle, in time, making a lilting rhythm for new birds and old birds and busy bees to harmonize over, because they’re the show; they’re the stars, and Fukunaga’s only in it for the ride. 

 

New, old: Fukunaga feels reborn, Fukunaga feels like he’s been crossing these roads since the Earth started spinning.

 

The facility buildings loom, tall and proud like cherry trees, and Fukunaga is so, so small. He is so small, and yet, he stands tall and proud, because god, he’s here, it’s here: Nekoma. _Nekoma._

 

The pavement swarms with masses of students abuzz with the feeling of _new;_ new beginnings, new projects, new terms. New mistakes, too, by all means, but even that is shadowed by the near-overwhelming feeling of new life here and there and everywhere, and Fukunaga can’t help but look forward to it all.

 

Fukunaga can’t help but fall in love with the springtime.

 

And then a different sort of shadow falls over his spot on the fence, and Fukunaga has time to remember that _new_ also means — 

 

Means new faces, new friends.

 

He looks up. And up, and up, past long legs, lean build, sharp nose, mischievous eyes, until his gaze falls on a rooster-head of black hair. Locked under his left arm, a familiar yellow mohawk. Under that, Taketora Yamamoto’s pinched expression.

 

“Kid,” rooster-head says to Fukunaga. “You play volleyball?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**II. the slow-down**

 

Summer arrives in waves. Waves of brilliant sunbeams, waves of the lake inviting everyone to come closer, get in, _swim farther out, the water’s perfect._

 

Fukunaga buries himself under the sand. The sun is so persistent that the sand is several layers warm, and Fukunaga won’t be moving for a while, or ever again, maybe.

 

The thing about summer is that time slows down; it distorts and blurs together. Everything, really: Fukunaga tries to remember how to derive the roots of a quadratic equation, or recite the poem he’d been made to memorize just a week ago, and finds that absolutely nothing has substance in his mind anymore — everything becoming just a little bit detached, everything being held together by thin strings of gum. He can hardly recall what he had for last night’s dinner, much less what today’s date is, or even the date that Nekoma is supposed to go to nationals.

 

The sand is warm; Fukunaga closes his eyes.

 

There’s a buzz of shouting in the distance — Yaku-san trying to keep the volleyball game civil, probably. Laughter, seagulls; the resounding _whap_ of one of the bigger hit-and-run waves every half a minute, always retreating gently and then returning for more, more. A different _whap_ whenever Kuroo-san blocks a spike, then jeering, teasing. The heat hugging the expanse of the beach like a lover, the frantic _click-click-click_ of Kenma on his hand-held game, then the lack thereof, when Kuroo runs over to drag him into the mess.

 

Fukunaga marvels at it. How despite it all, everything fits together like the organs of a beast as old as time, fits together like the feeling of a newly-furnished home. Despite the entirety of both of Nekoma’s volleyball teams being, currently, a good couple of hundred kilometers away from the very idea.

 

(Tokyo, for all its dried-squid stands and winking lights and sleepless streets, has always been much, much too crowded.)

 

“There’s popsicles,” the Captain says, approaching to scoop up a handful of sand and depositing it on top of Fukunaga. His favourite senior, easily. (Another despite: his favourite, despite not having known the man for more than three months.) “Come on, _manekineko-chan._ Little Yakkun’s gonna go mad. You can’t stay here forever.”

 

Fukunaga nods, _yes he can._

 

“Don’t make me sic rooster-head on you.”

 

Fukunaga squeezes his eyes tighter.

 

A sigh, and then the weight of the sand on top of him begins to diminish in bursts. “What are you kids going to do without me?”

 

 _Good question,_ Fukunaga thinks, even as he’s picked up off the ground and dusted off by strong hands, even as Yaku-san stomps over to angrily make him apply another layer of sunscreen and then threatens his life if he doesn’t join to make the teams even. Even as Kuroo-san pinches his cheeks and pushes him onto the senior’s side so that he can practice blocking more spikes despite the alarming rate at which his own palms are turning a flush pink and sweat is pouring off of his back like buckets.

 

The thing about summer — the _thing_ is, that nothing is necessarily about the heat, or forgetting the date even though you checked your calendar for the fourth time an hour ago, or how quickly you become exhausted just from hitting a volleyball back and forth a couple of times. 

 

The contrary, in fact: blue tongues, warm rocks beneath cold feet, accidentally bringing seaweed with you back to shore. Summer; the embodiment of time stretched thin, of _youth,_ as Kuroo-san would insist. The pleasant comfort in discovering that you’re still small enough for the seniors to carry in one arm.

 

Fukunaga runs up, spikes the ball with a satisfying _smack._ It flies backward off of the block.

 

“Good,” Coach Nekomata says, from the sidelines, and smiles.

 

Fukunaga smiles back, secretly, and spikes twice as hard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**III. pocket change**

 

The fall is forgiving. Mild, almost, compared to damp springs and insistent summers.

 

Fukunaga veers to the side of the street whenever he walks to school, eager to crunch down as many leaves as possible, and squirrels play in between burying acorns as if they don’t have a care in the world, which they don’t.

 

The fall is forgiving. Even when the school year seems like its dragging on for much too long and the fruitless repeat of work upon work drones by ears, and the smallest wedges in half-conscious routines cause one to stumble and trip, the colourful piles of red-golden-brown leaves are always there — are always ready to catch with open arms, open hearts.

 

Fall brings the Halloween parades, ever-passionate the country of dress-up; all sorts of candy-apples and strudels and so many bustling patisseries that Fukunaga feels warm and full just looking at them. 

 

He rolls two massive pumpkins home from the market, only pausing at a crossroads to wait for a train whip by and throw a whirlwind of leaves up into the air. 

 

 _Eight, nine, ten_ — and the train is gone, and the pumpkins lie by his feet, and the leaves are falling, falling, falling, like paper angels.

 

“Oi, Fukunaga! Let me help you with that.” Tora calls from behind. He’s carrying a squash of his own, its stem peeking out from his backpack. “I was just going this way.”

 

Fukunaga makes the _okay!_ sign with his fingers, and lets him. 

 

Halfway home, he opens his mouth, and asks Tora to practice spiking with him, to which the boy agrees fervently, eyes wide and sparkling.

 

 

 

Mid-November national qualifiers come much too soon. 

 

Fukunaga spikes seven, maybe eight times (is on the bench for most of the whole thing), Yaku-san dives desperately to save the last point, Bokuto-san spikes it into the ground anyway. Kuroo-san cries, and then Bokuto wraps him in his strong arms and mashes his cheeks together and demands he promise to make Captain next year. The seniors hold it together, and Fukunaga watches on, and Kenma lies on the gym floor.

 

Coach Nekomata smiles proudly, sunnily, gathers the team around him in a crescent to say: “You did wonderfully.”

 

Kuroo-san cries again. 

 

Mid-November national qualifiers go much too soon.

 

The fall is forgiving, in that time moves forward and the past is the past and the future is the future. Fukunaga goes to practice like everyone else: spikes, receives, survives painful drills, takes hot showers and puts on sweaters and ducks a little lower into his shirt collar to avoid the breeze. 

 

Coach Nekomata teaches the team what it means to forgive themselves. To recognize what went right, to do better next year. 

 

Fukunaga sees Kuroo-san stand a little taller, breathe out slowly, like all the things he’d wanted to yell had been liquified, evaporated, condensed, and now needs to be expelled from his body. Fukunaga imitates him, then laughs, quietly.

 

Fukunaga sees Yaku-san glare at everything even more intensely than before, sees Kenma glancing up from his game to listen to Coach before remembering that he’s in the middle of a fight and looks back down. Fukunaga sees his teammates change in hundreds of little ways, and wonders about himself, wonders if anyone can look at him and say that something is just _a little bit different._

 

Kenma smiles at him on his way out of the gym; Tora high-fives him. The seniors take turns picking him up and spinning him ‘round and marveling at how the freshmen seem to get smaller and smaller each year.

 

“You’ve got to eat more,” Captain says, and takes him to ramen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**IV. all together now**

 

Winter.

 

Winter comes in soft, white blankets, covering everything in a way that makes Fukunaga look at the world anew. 

 

Pure and bright and cold in every sense of the word; biting noses, toes; biting the daytime in half. Neatly stacking sheet upon sheet of white over seasoned green, up and down the lane like a layered cake. Sweeping the fallen leaves under the rug, putting them away for a later time.

 

Winter means _crisp._ Crisp, like the air, like the feeling of still-hot apple pie crusts giving way underneath impatient teeth, like the sound of boots when the temperatures turn rain into snow into ice. Trains rumbling into the station a few minutes late, an hour late, shifting the soft-set tiles of schedules an inch to the left. Schedules that are few and far between, anyway, for all the plans they try to keep together, for all the frantic handing-in of final assessments left and right and in between.

 

For Fukunaga Shouhei, winter means red ski jackets.

 

The tail of December is tweed-tied together with the end of second term, the promise of self-amusement dormant on everyone’s tongues suddenly very much alive.

 

The tail of December arrives like it does every year: warm and fuzzy and smelling all kinds of delicious. The tight-knit diner is homey and full, twinkling; just how Fukunaga likes it, and everyone’s a little too excited, just how Fukunaga likes it. Loud is a reassurance — what with Fukurodani insisting on squeezing into the place, what with Bokuto and Kuroo clinging on to each other and the sound of smacking backs and wheezing laughter filling and filling the room like there’s any sort of possibility that they might run out of it in the near future, like there’s no such thing as despair or disappointment or anything of that sort existing in the world.

 

Fukunaga receives a pair of blue mittens with little line drawings of cats imprinted on them. He makes sure to thank Captain out loud. 

 

The parents are gathered around a table in the corner, where the only sounds are those of clinking glasses, merry laughter, and gossipping about respective children, not that they can think of anything bad to say about anything — not when the lights are soft and the food is heavenly and the atmosphere is anything but chilly. Fukunaga’s parents are there as well: bright and captivating as always, filling the conversation where others pause, looking over at Fukunaga’s table every few minutes only to smile and wink at him. Fukunaga winks back.

 

The coaches sit around another table, from which Nekomata smiles at the lot benignly as he exchanges slow chatter with the other already red-faced coaches, not at all unlike an aged cat, Fukunaga thinks.

 

And then Captain announces, “Half a minute ‘til midnight.”

 

“You should talk more,” Tora tells Fukunaga over the noise, waving his glass of coke around. “You’re always thinking fantastic things in your head.”

 

A laugh, genuine. “You too,” he says.

 

 _Five._ In winter, Fukunaga believes he sees things in the perfect amount of clarity. In the utmost clarity, that is, as if he’s watching three-dimensional, immersive television; he takes absolute pleasure in the fact that though he is oftentimes removed from the scene itself, he is allowed to and has the ability to put himself back in it whenever he wants. 

 

 _Four._ Fukunaga loves observing, has always loved it, but the crisp air makes him feel so sentient, so real, as if he is recording everything in its original definition, and he falls in love with it more and more every second — seeing Kenma handing over his game to Akaashi to play, Tora swinging a fairy-light-wrapped arm around Kai, Yaku-san snapping _so many pictures_ when he thinks no one is looking, Captain blushing furiously when the third-year manager leans a little too close.

 

 _Three._ It has always been in Fukunaga’s belief that each person is a miracle within themselves. Made to expand and send out waves and waves of light that pierce and penetrate, only some people send more, and some people send less, and that’s really okay, considering the way the universe tends to stack its blocks; balancing things out just as they threaten to topple over. Fukunaga sees people like Bokuto and Kuroo, and Kuroo and Kenma, and Kenma and Akaashi, sees his parents hunch over from laughing too hard, each person inevitably somebody’s someone. _Him,_ inevitably somebody’s someone. 

 

 _Two._ Winter, Fukunaga realizes, is as quiet as it is loud. The scene inside serves as, no more or less, the precise opposite of the soft snow falling outside the darkened windows lining the walls. The universe stacks its blocks carefully, like it’s playing two captains at once, choosing teams for eternity-long games. Snow over here; LED lights on this side. Fukunaga; his parents. Akaashi-san; Bokuto. It burns red hot where the cold hits the hardest, it builds fireplaces in the middle of snowbanks. It sends Winter to draw everything together, draw dusty curtains closed, throw clean ones up.

 

 _One._ Winter links the end to the beginning. Winter links mitten-covered hands, and bumbling trains, and wooden dining tables, and people, and people, and people.

 

 _Zero._ Fireworks, hollering, kissing. 

 

And Fukunaga steps back into the picture, finds himself smiling so hard that it starts to hurt.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> no offence but i fell in love with this fic while writing it and i just hope yall enjoy


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